| Disclaimer, I work in corp finance: My wife and I have what I believe is a novel approach. Our requirements were low mental overhead, but effective. 99% of what you read says to make a budget and follow it. Well, that sucks and is zero fun. It also doesn't apply to people who's income is significantly higher than their expenses, or people who are paying off lots of student debt or saving for a house etc since it just measures monthly dollars (income statement) and doesn't focus enough on where you are and where you are going. We use a balance sheet approach. Every quarter 12/31, 3/31, 6/30, 9/30 we go through all our accounts, and calculate total assets (401k, cash, kid's 529 etc) and total liabilities (we have a car loan for example). After a few quarters you can see how things are moving and you can talk about decisions in terms of how it will impact future balance sheets. One discussion we will have again this quarter is whether to pay the car loan off or put the equivalent cash in the market, or CDs to some other choice. TBH, we may not even do anything for a few quarters because we don't have to, but the balance sheet approach means we will talk it through in March which forces us to make an active decision, and not just leave the cash in a zero interest account while simultaneously paying interest on a car loan. We also take that quarterly time to review things like life insurance, trust for our kids etc. Side note, anyone have a good article on how to buy long-term disability insurance for office workers? |